The Robert Stanek Short Story & Novella Collection Page 5

  He stared the bull in the eye, quickly thrashing the space between them. This one was smaller than the one who was his companion, though not his companion of choice. He didn’t have time to ponder the other’s whereabouts; he would have to deal with this one first. This bull was younger and swifter than Old Bull, who was craftier and wiser.

  Snapping jaws and lurching tail were Ray’s primary concerns. He used the end of his staff to rap the bull, a stout blow on his snout in the tender spot between the eyes.

  The bull was wary but not excessively so. “I’m sorry to have invaded your home, I will not do so again, if you let me go,” he called out. He was stuck. He couldn’t jump backwards, a return trek into the wet now would be fatal and he couldn’t get around the bull without a struggle.

  He thudded the ground as hard as he could, prancing the stick from left to right. “Stay there,” he cautioned, “One moment and I’ll be gone, if you oblige.”

  White teeth glistened against the red-fire light of the setting sun. Tiny balls of perspiration licked Ray’s brow, but the smile had not faded away—he was somehow excited by this encounter and not frightened as he had been before.

  Renewed vigor surged through him. “If you eat me, you’ll get a belly ache, this I promise you!” he teased. One step right, he told himself, moving gradually in that direction. Soft mush beneath his feet told him to retreat to the left.

  His hands were trembling now as he rapped the bull again, coaxing it to scamper right. One step left, he told himself.

  He saw the bull’s eyes flash just as the beast’s tail lashed at him. He braced himself, using the stick as he had been taught. His eyes became wide, ripe circles and his mouth dropped open as he fell. He was left staring into the eyes of the young bull and swallowed a hefty lump in his throat.

  Somehow, he knew this was the end. Testing your luck twice in one day was much too much. The young bull would lash out with its tail, set its jaws upon him, and that would be that. But the young bull didn’t move. It just looked at him. In the wet behind him, Ray heard a nearby splash and the deep rumbling challenge of Old Bull.

  The challenge set Ray’s feet to work. He jumped away, running for all he was worth, and did not stop running until he was half a dozen houses away. He glanced back then, searching for a dark shape in the wet, mumbling hurried thanks before he continued. He was not one to easily forget debts owed, and guessed that perhaps Old Bull would one day get his reward, but not if he was quicker.

  A closely woven section of brambles spread out in front of him, again forcing him to detour. The tangled area was several blocks long and he would have to make a full circle around it. The sun was settling from the sky, brambles before him and bulls behind him, Ray stopped and took a deep breath. He cleared his thoughts, focusing on his goal: a place to safely spend the dark hours of night.

  In navigating around the thick undergrowth, he came upon a beleaguered, time-bent tree, whose trunk sagged heavily. The ground here was hard and he saw no sign the residence was occupied. Moving his back up against the trunk so that his eyes faced the wet, he settled in for a while.

  “My path is long,” he whispered to himself, suddenly considering all that was ahead of him. Tomorrow, he was sure, would be a day of choosing.

  He unclasped his pack and inspected its goods once more, white root, dark root, bittersweet, gritty bush, and all, claiming the second piece of dark root, a small piece of white root, a stalk of bittersweet, and one leaf of the gritty. “Mealtime,” he told himself.

  Before he washed his hands, arms and face with a bit of the wet and the gritty, he placed his prized meal on top of his pouch, and then strolled over to the edge of his newfound house.

  He rinsed off, cautiously eyeing the wet for signs of slither and bull, and then wandered back to his little spot, considering many things. The slither was fast and sleek; it could wrap and entwine. The bull was quick of jaw and of tail, ferocious in most respects, a large mound of teeth and tail. Choosing the correct companion spoke as much about the questor as did the quest or the staff, and he knew this well. He had hefty yearns. He knew what he wanted in the end and to where he roamed, but still had not made the one choice that mattered most—the choice of companion.

  Placing his back against the aged trunk, he slid to the hard ground. As he shifted his back against the tree, he felt and heard the squish as several plump somethings as thick wet splotches exploded across his back. Remembering his fall into the pool, he turned away from the tree as if it had bitten him, then began pulling off his clothes. The suckers were up and down his legs, under his arms, plump and ripe with his blood. His stomach soured and he gagged—something about suckers when they were fed full with blood always made his stomach queasy. Fortunately, he hadn’t eaten much all day and there wasn’t much to spit up.

  After he wiped the spittle from his cheek and lips, he set about removing the suckers. Peeling them off wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Suckers latched on to skin like they had a thousand tiny teeth. The remedy in his backpack was quite simple—the stinging. Wipe the stinging over them; they curled and writhed as if in pain. All you had to do then was to pluck them off and discard them.

  When he used the stinging on all the suckers he could reach, he used the tree to squish those that remained in places he couldn’t reach. Sudden pops, not unlike the popping of corn, and a bit of pain told him of his success. Afterward, he dress quickly and tried to put the grisly sounds of popping suckers out of his mind by eating.

  He supped on a bit of light and a bit of dark, following it with the bittersweet—all of it meant to calm his nerves and settle his stomach. Crunching, slowly and quietly, he whittled away the time until the sun disappeared from view. He massaged tense muscles now, inspecting his feet for sores or worse. He found only one black sucker remained, perched between the big toe of his right foot and his next larger toe. He coaxed it off with the stinging, snuffed its life with the butt end of his stick.

  Finding another sucker, set him back to searching. He ran his fingers under his arms and through his hair. He removed shirt and wrap, checked his back and genitals again just to be sure. Finding nothing, satisfied, he slipped back on his shirt and wrap, settling again against the old tree.

  The air turned cool as the humidity lifted. He crouched low, bunching arms and legs close together. His eyes gradually acclimated to the changing light and he was less afraid. For a time, he remained motionless, eyes keen and ears alert. Hearing no movement, no slither, he relaxed, confident his abode was true.

  The day sounds faded away, and the night sounds took their place. No more trumpeting of birds, or scampering of lesser creatures, although he did hear an occasional plop into the wet--not large plops mind you, rather, small ones. For a long while, he was too restless to sleep, contemplating a host of thoughts, each one grander than the last. His thoughts flared as he recalled something he had overlooked. He groped for the top of his pack, unsealing it and cautiously probing inside, immediately recalling why it was fruitful to have segregated the contents.

  Cautiously he lifted four leaves of the stinging, placing them in a semi-circle around him at arm’s length. A pungent, sweet aroma wafted to his nose, and now, he could sleep. He slept in the fashion of the In when in a strange place: eyes open, face held up and alert, though within his mind he drifted immediately into a pleasant sleep. He would later recall the things that had passed before his eyes in the night, as one would a dream.

  Many hours later, a dull gray probing into his eyes told him morning had arrived. The sun was still far from the sky, but dawn had indeed settled in as he stirred. He gathered up the four leaves of the stinging and placed them tenderly back into his pack. As breakfast was the most important meal of the day for him, and in need of a plentiful supply of energy, Ray ate heavy, allowing a full root of dark and a half of the light. He drowned his thirst with as much of the wet as he could drink.

  Excitement mixed with elation drove him to a frenzied start. Staff in hand, pack in pl
ace, he marched off. An unsettling, resonant splash just one residence over told him he was not alone this morning. He imagined it was still Old Bull in search of his prey, which helped maintain the urgency in his pace for many hours. The rooftops were hanging thick with dew, not unusual for the early morning hours, yet nevertheless, irritating to his skin as he went on his way.

  He came to a widening, an area where the dry spread out sparsely, and it required much time and patience to by-pass. He had to make three trips through the wet, cringing with each, and counting his blessings after each. It was in places such as this where he gained renewed faith for the long stick he toted, for without it, he would have disappeared into innumerable deeps and never surfaced.

  Thankfully, the plots ahead thickened, and for a time, he managed to ease the tension from his muscles. But as was inevitable, he again came to a widening. Weary now, he rested before going any farther.

  He performed a cursory inspection of himself and his gear before settling in. A black sucker attached to the small of his ear soured his stomach. He didn’t mind so much when they stuck to feet or legs, but the higher they climbed the more it bothered him. He pictured it wiggling into his ear and setting up its home in the tube therein and a sickness rolled into his stomach again. That image in his mind ruined his rest and he headed to the trail quicker than he should have.

  He was midway through a ten-foot span when he suddenly lost his footing, nothing but mush and muck were under foot. Waist deep, he turned back, detouring to the far end of the plot he had deserted.

  Hesitant now, he settled in for a long rest as he should have before, fearing he had stirred up too much activity nearby. He watched and listened. No slither, no hiss, no thump. His keen eyes searched the adjacent domicile. He saw no bedding areas, no dwelling mounds, and so he relaxed as he waited for his racing heart to slow and then proceeded on, cautiously.

  An eight-foot stretch crossed, he paused again. The widening was getting steeper and steeper, and he wondered momentarily if it would be a good idea to turn away from this area. Instinct, however, told him to carry on. A voice said to him, “Go until you think you can’t go any more, and then go just a little bit more…” He followed the voice’s advice.

  He followed the length of the house, trying to glean the easiest crossing, and then finally finding what he thought to be it, he started out. He stepped with care and only when sure he would not find muck, and all the while, he begged his luck to hold out. “No slither, no bull,” he told himself.

  The residence he came upon was excessively limber. It tilted and warbled as he pressed his weight against it.

  A ripple in the wet caused his heart to skip to a faster beat. He clawed and pulled, straining to pull himself up, fearing for feet with each fresh kick. He pushed off with the arbor as hard as he could, causing it to bow beneath his weight.

  As something touched the toes on his left foot, Ray panicked. He shimmied up to the tuft of the dry, tucking his legs under his torso immediately, thrashing out with the stick as hard as he could into the wet, poking and retrieving again and again until he was confident nothing was near. Afterward, he curled up in a ball and soothed the rising and falling of his chest.

  After what could have been only seconds, but seemed many long minutes, Ray rolled over onto his side, pressing his knee down as he went for support to gain his feet, standing uneasily. He took account of the toes on his left foot then, and finding five he sighed in relief.

  Tall brush and weed-grass obscured his view and he had to press through its tangle to reach the other side. Making his way through such growth was tedious work and it took conscious effort on his part to resist the urge to push his way through it hastily. Using the staff as his guide, he laid aside bundle after bundle of weed-grass. Thick such as this could be a favored burrow of an Old Queen, and in such quarters, he did not want to meet her face to face.

  Coming out of the tall, he jerked to a halt, amazed. Beyond the weed-grass and scatter brush was a hollow loch with its basin spread wide before him. He stooped down, making a low profile, blending in with the tall around him—such an open space frightened him.

  The wet of the loch was clear and dark, readily deep. It abounded with ripples, and unfamiliar shapes darting here and there beneath its surface.

  An uncountable mixture of groans greeted the mid-day sun, so many groans in fact that Ray could not even keep track of their bearing to him. As he surveyed the three arbor trees spread out around the loch, he knew without a doubt that he had finally come to the place lost and deep.

  As he stood there, attentively watching, he saw a blunt, black, log-like head pass by in the waters in front of him. A moment later he saw a flash of the bull’s yellow belly, the flailing of its tail. The bull smacked the surface three times, sank deep. Ray observed the spreading of the ripples in its wake. After a short passing, it surfaced.

  He recognized Old Bull then as it lifted up from the wet and trumpeted its arrival in the now-familiar baritone moan. He smiled as he heard the return greeting calls from the queens who were yet to mate. Old Bull had been late, but the queens had patiently waited. “Sorry,” offered Ray as he watched Old Bull slip from sight again.

  Ray sat back onto his haunches, mindful of his surroundings, and consequently flattening a small arch around himself. Several young bulls were exercising their rights, offering up challenges to Old Bull.

  Ray watched Old Bull struggle with its first challenge as he set a warding ring about himself with four leaves of the stinging, urging the grizzled fellow on, craft and guile versus nimble and swift.

  “Time’s a wasting,” Ray called out, realizing then that he wasn’t afraid anymore. He had survived an encounter with a bull. He had found the place lost and deep. And he was one step closer to becoming a man.

  Chapter Three:

  Choosing

  Old Bull successfully fended off challenger after challenger as Ray watched. While he was idle, he was not idle without intent. He was also searching through the ins and outs of the most prevalent question in his mind—the choosing. Which would he choose? The bull or the slither? It was this question that required most of his attention—the display was merely a diversion—but he still wasn’t entirely sure of his choice. Both were excellent companions. Selecting one or the other as a companion would mean he would no longer be alone on his journey to manhood. The selection in itself would take him one step closer to being a man—if only he could choose.

  He thought about the captive slithers and bulls in his village. No captive grew to the size they did as when they were free. That in itself seemed puzzling to him in this moment and while he was sure he had realized this before he found it odd. He also thought about Kotte and Emette who lost their companions. He thought about the sadness the loss brought to them and to the village. Kotte and Emette had both chosen bulls. They had both been a bit careless, granting their companions a bit more freedom than they should have, and allowing them to get a bit more of an appetite than was wise. If he chose a bull would he be as careless as Kotte and Emette? Would he be able to be a strict master as was needed? Or would he be a bit too lax and bring sorrow to his people?

  Old Bull settled in with the first of his queens late in the day. The season was getting on though, and not many of the queens had waited as long as they should have, for which Ray was thankful, as it was already hatching time for the early broods.

  Early was a good sign to him. He had been early, and in many things he had been the first and although this was mostly by virtue of the period of his birth, he exalted it all the same. Anything that peaked early was a good thing to him, and early broods were no exception. He saw a mother slither and a mindful litter pass his secreted place, tongues flapping, slit eyes staring. He held still until they were gone, not wanting to scare them into a frenzied evacuation.

  “Don’t worry, mother slither,” Ray whispered to himself after the slither family had passed by, “I need one fresher.”

  He searched clumsily
through his pack, removing all of its contents to get to the rounded hollow at the very bottom. The stretch of arbor was obtuse in shape, being about a foot long and gapped in the middle with one end sealed with heedful cross-stitching. The container had a small band on top that he could adjust for carrying and the backside was flattened so it would not roll when placed down. He admired his handiwork for a moment more, counting the days on both hands the container’s making had required. Again asking himself, which would it be: slither or bull, and again, he did not know.

  He considered his trek now, thinking that perhaps the choice lay obvious somewhere within it. He questioned the way the slither moved, gliding upon its belly. The bull had feet with which Ray knew it could race at tremendous speeds, even on the dry. The slither was graceful, the bull sometimes awkward. Yet the bull had clear advantages over the smaller slither.

  Ray’s eyes turned back to the loch. Old Bull was lethargically withdrawing as the day was nearing an end. As he watched Old Bull slip away, he searched the length of his staff with his hands. Every inch of the six foot, straight length was as familiar to him as his own hands. He had smoothed and refined its edges and strengthened it himself. The staff, like the container, was an integral part of his journey.

  Thinking of the container brought back memories of Tall. Tall was his closest friend in the village. Tall was the one who helped him learn how to make the webbing on the end of the container when old three toes had declared that Ray was “unteachable.”

  “I made it, Tall,” Ray said to the empty air, a sparkle in his eye. He imagined then that his lanky friend was smiling back at him. As he reclined back, his stomach rumbled and the thought of food and eating came to him suddenly. He decided it was time for a grand feast. He had found the place lost and deep—and he had done it on his own.